Hi Paula
your post gave me pause and I wanted to respond

with a few thoughts from a fellow person with PD

who is also , as you say, "plus sized". I am not

responding because I have "the answer", but because

I trying to figure things out just like we all are.
I think it's very easy, with PD, to feel somewhat

embarrassed by our bodies quirks. We move a little

differently at times, we have tremors, maybe walk

with a limp, you know, many things that we can look

at and think that people are looking at us, talking

about us, laughing at us. As large people we can

already relate to those kinds of feelings, perhaps the

PD just adds to the self-consciousness.
So we brace ourselves, we live our lives in a seige

mentality, huddled inside ourselves to protect against

the potential pain of the people who look, judge ,

point and laugh.
Yeah, mean folks are out there. No doubt about that.

But I have discovered in life that if I live in shame

(of my body size, PD, or whatever) I make it real

obvious to those around me that I accept the role of

victim. I do this by body language, eye contact (or

lack of), the way I speak (or if I speak) and on and

on. This very weakness, like in the animal world,

culls you from the herd, marks you as an easy target

and it will manifest negative responses from the

"mean people" out there.
But.. in acceptance of myself, and it is a hard, hard

process to achieve and harder yet to maintain, I find

that I reflect out that I am okay as I am. I accept me

today. There is always room for improvement to be

sure, but today I am here, I am this way, I am a

large person and I have a neurological disorder that

I am dealing with.
When we can accept ourselves, we draw those who

also can accept us. It's almost a magnetism concept,

isnt it? We can draw or repel by how we accept or

reject our own selves. The outside reflects the inside.
I once heard Leo Buscaglia say something that really

stuck with me. He was talking about a plus-sized

woman who was having trouble finding dates and

friends. The advice given to her was to find ways to

celebrate the very things that you reject about

yourself. Okay, she didn't like her thighs and hips,

but she began lightening up on herself about them,

stopped apologizing to herself and others about them.

She began to celebrate them, laugh about them,

make them something she talked about in her

flirtations. Instead of hiding them, she had the joyful

audacity to present it as one of her "selling points".

And, do you know, in doing that she found men

willing to celebrate her hips and thighs with her. She

found men who were drawn by the strength she

demonstrated despite not being the kind of woman

you'd see on a fashion magazine.
So here we are, we have this information, now what

do we do with it? Is it worth experimenting with to

see if it works in your life?
So think of ways to celebrate your Parkinson's and

celebrate your size. How can we make these things

into selling points? To use a basic analogy, let's turn

the lemons into lemonade. Then we will draw those

who may not care much for sour tart lemons, but

they sure would enjoy a nice cool glass of lemonade.
How we do that is individual, we each need to work

with ourselves to see what clicks. But I'll share a

few suggestions in closing as nudges in the right

direction.
1) Make a lighthearted list of 20 good things about

having PD. Get absurd with it, get jokey about it.

My list contains such silliness as "In an emergency,

you'll never be called on to perform emergency brain

surgery, so no pressure there", "You can play one

hell of a game of Yahtzee", "You can thread sewing

machine needles without having to stop the machine"

and on and on. You are developing a silly, light

attitude about PD, that is your goal. When you have

this list, you will have tons of emotional backup when

you are in public and drop things or shake. You can

fall back on an item from your list and say "It's just

Parkinson's.. it's okay.. you should have seen me

conducting the Boston Symphony, I wore them out!".

Lightness and a return to balance. If you laugh about it from a safe place like that, it lightens up the feelings of uncomfortableness folks sometimes experience around someone with a physical challenge.
2) Ponder the saying "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind". Lots of wisdom there in dealing with reactions to both your size and your PD. Those who truly are worth your time are the ones who will take the time and effort to get beyond such minor things as a tremor in your hand or your body type. Bodies grow and get smaller, our PD symptoms have good days and bad, but our core remains. Those willing to get to these essential parts of us are the ones you can be assured it is worth investing yourself in.
3) ....
I will leave this last one blank as I want you to go off on your own fork in the road and see where this takes you.
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps.